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ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: LNG2014-1176 Athens Institute for Education and Research ATINER ATINER's Conference Paper Series ANT2019- 2638 Sacred Landscape and Settlement Patterns in Nahua and Otomi Communities of Northern Puebla, Mexico Alberto Diez Barroso Repizo Professor National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) Mexico 1 ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: ANT2019-2638 An Introduction to ATINER's Conference Paper Series Conference papers are research/policy papers written and presented by academics at one of ATINER’s academic events. ATINER’s association started to publish this conference paper series in 2012. All published conference papers go through an initial peer review aiming at disseminating and improving the ideas expressed in each work. Authors welcome comments Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos President Athens Institute for Education and Research This paper should be cited as follows: Diez Barroso Repizo, A. (2018). “Sacred Landscape and Settlement Patterns in Nahua and Otomi Communities of Northern Puebla, Mexico”, Athens: ATINER'S Conference Paper Series, No: ANT2019-2638 Athens Institute for Education and Research 8 Valaoritou Street, Kolonaki, 10671 Athens, Greece Tel: + 30 210 3634210 Fax: + 30 210 3634209 Email: [email protected] URL: www.atiner.gr URL Conference Papers Series: www.atiner.gr/papers.htm Printed in Athens, Greece by the Athens Institute for Education and Research. All rights reserved. Reproduction is allowed for non-commercial purposes if the source is fully acknowledged. ISSN: 2241-2891 17/07/2019 2 ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: ANT2019-2638 Sacred Landscape and Settlement Patterns in Nahua and Otomi Communities of Northern Puebla, Mexico Alberto Diez Barroso Repizo Professor National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) Mexico Abstract This study analyzes the relationship between the human being and the landscape within the concept of cultural landscape in the Nahua and Otomi indigenous communities in the north of state of Puebla in Mexico. This research was based on comparative ethnography in several communities where the landscape has a sacred connotation and is reflected in the material culture of the towns through the urban layout of some indigenous settlements. These characteristics have their origin in Mesoamerica since prehispanic times, and reflect the cosmovision of the Nahuas and Otomies, contributing to the knowledge of humanity and how the community takes part in the processes of the universe through the sacredness of the environment. Keywords: Sacred landscape, Mesoamerica, settlement patterns, Otomi, Nahua. 3 ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: ANT2019-2638 Introduction There is a deep tradition in the indigenous communities of Mexico visible in everyday life, customs and traditions, and even in the location of their settlements, in which the geography and the sacred landscape are the main axis. That is, some landscape elements such as mountains, springs, caves, rivers, among others, are part of the daily activities of the villages, such as the celebrations of the start of the agricultural calendar. Although during the sixteenth century, in the years after the conquest of Mexico, most of the ritual practices associated with the landscape were suppressed by the friars during the process of evangelization, this was not enough and at present several community rituals related with the landscape still prevail, which due to their characteristics and continuity with the traditional ways of life can be considered as cultural landscapes (Rössler 2002). Example of the above we find it in the region known as Sierra Norte de Puebla, in the highlands of Mexico (Fig. 1). In a geographical environment composed of intricate canyons, plentiful rivers, with abundant rainfall and vegetation, inhabit several indigenous groups as Nahuas, Otomies, Tepehuas, Totonacos, interacting with mestizos. Figure 1. Localization at the Researched Area Objectives This paper originated from a research whose objective was to know the relationships between contemporary indigenous settlements with geography, to which these groups have given a sacred connotation, and how the landscape around them continues to be part of their worldview and his daily life. Within this cultural landscape we can also observe the presence of prehispanic settlements, which form a well-defined localization pattern by associating with the sacred landscape and contemporary communities. For this investigation it was decided to delimit a geographical area in the western end of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, between the current municipalities of Honey and Pahuatlan (Fig. 2), because in this region the Nahuas and Otomies cultural groups interact, presenting numerous cultural loans (Diez Barroso 2018, 2016). 4 ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: ANT2019-2638 Figure 2. Detailed Localization of the Researched Area and the Localities Mentioned in the Text Source: INEGI 2001. Modified by Diez Barroso 2019 The Landscape as a Symbolic Cultural Element The human settlements scattered in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, since ancient times, were drawn taking some elements of the landscape as the main axis of their urbanism, like the mountains, springs, rivers or caves (Diez Barroso 2018), these elements of geography are integrated into the cultural aspects of the communities, who have given them a sacred character, forming symbolic elements that not only justify the existence of humanity around the kosmos, but also humanity has the responsibility to cooperate with it, taking the landscape as an intermediary between the human and the sacred (Pérez Diego R., captain Otomi of the Chila flyer dance, personal communication). The above is conceptualized in the characterization of the territory according to the theoretical methodological aspects of cultural landscape studies, which consider the territory as that region or specific surface of land, in the micro or macro, which in addition to including natural physical characteristics, it also constitutes a socialized and cultured space where the relationships of human societies take place (Proudfoot 1981; Ruiz y Burillo 1988). The previous concept also implies the economic factor, since interculturality in the study region is highly influenced by commercial relationships, constituting in some cases certain cultural loans between Nahua and Otomi ethnic groups, as we can currently observe in the iconography of the embroidered designs in some textiles. Because of the above, ethnography will give us the guidelines to understand the symbolic processes of the landscape in relation to culture, without ignoring that throughout history these symbolic processes could be seen in different ways (Caro Baroja 1982). To illustrate the above, we selected two specific case studies, the first one is in the Otomi community of Chila de Juarez, in the municipality of Honey, the second case contemplates the Nahuas communities of Xolotla and Atla, in the municipality of Pahuatlan. The selection criteria is that both communities are very close to each other, they are part of the western end of the Sierra Norte de Puebla region, and although they interact culturally and economically, the Otomi and Nahua communities preserve their particular uses and customs and their own language. However there is an element in common between both cultural groups, it is their current settlement pattern, which has as its main axis the presence of a sacred mountain which marks the 5 ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: ANT2019-2638 starting point of its agricultural and ritual activities, so it is ideal to perform a comparative analysis between both cultural groups in order to find concordances between their forms of cosmogonic, symbolic and ritual thought, and this can bring us closer to understanding the ancient Mesoamerican thought as well. The Comparative Analysis as Methodology for the Settlement Pattern Studies As already mentioned, one of the communities we selected to carry out this comparative analysis belongs to the mountain Otomies of the Chila de Juarez region. Based on what is observed in the urban distribution of the locality, we deduce that it was planned starting from a cosmological conception of indigenous tradition in which the sacred mountain stands out as the predominant element (Fig. 3). Figure 3. View of the Sacred Mountain from the Locality of Chila When observing the urban plan of the locality of Chila de Juarez from the center, the civic square with the mast of the flying ritual and the greasy pole stands out,1 two essentials elements for the community (Fig. 4), because both play a key role in the festivities of the beginning of the agricultural cycle and the main festivity of the town. If from this geographical point we draw a straight line towards the west we will observe in the foreground a prominent mountain know in the town as “Cerro Flojo” considered sacred mountain and where the community ascends during the afternoon of May 2 to spend the night at its top and then receive the dawn of May 3, date established by the Spaniards as day of the holy cross, but that in ancient Mesoamerican thought coincided with the beginning of the feast of one of its main gods called Tezcatlipoca, good of the time and the human destiny. 1 The mast of the flying ritual is part of a ceremony that took place from prehispanic times, that was classified as a dance, which helped it survive the post-conquest evangelization. This ritual was carried out with four to six participants, who were tied from the top of a mast and descended in